CHAPTER X.
A THUNDER-STORM
"That night a child might understand The de'il had business on his hand."
I ENDED my last chapter with mention of a metaphoric storm; but aliteral storm broke over the city of London on that night, such as itsdenizens remembered for many a day after. The lightning seemed, formore than an hour, the continuous pulsations of light from asulphurous furnace, and the thunder pealed with the cracks andrattlings of one long roar of artillery. The children, waked by thedin, cried in their beds in terror, and Sarah Rumble got her dressabout her, and said her prayers in panic.
After a while the intervals between the awful explosions were a littlemore marked, and Miss Rumble's voice could be heard by the children,comforting and reassuring in the brief lulls; although had they knownwhat a fright their comforter was herself in, their confidence in herwould have been impaired.
Perhaps there was a misgiving in Sarah Rumble's mind that thelightnings and thunders of irate heaven were invoked by the presenceof her mysterious lodger. Was even she herself guiltless, in hidingunder her roof-tree that impious old sinner, whom Rosemary Courtdisgorged at dead of night, as the churchyard does a ghost--aboutwhose past history--whose doings and whose plans, except that theywere wicked--she knew no more than about those of an evil spirit, hadshe chanced, in one of her spectre-seeing moods, to spy one movingacross the lobby.
His talk was so cold and wicked; his temper so fiendish; his nocturnaldisguises and outgoings so obviously pointed to secret guilt; and hisrelations with the meek Mr. Larkin, and with those potent Jews, who,grumbling and sullen, yet submitted to his caprices, as genii to thoseof the magician who has the secret of command,--that Mr. Dingwell hadin her eyes something of a supernatural horror surrounding him. In thethunderstorm, Sarah Rumble vowed secretly to reconsider the religiouspropriety of harbouring this old man; and amid these qualms, it waswith something of fear and anger that, in a silence between the pealsof the now subsiding storm, she heard the creak of his shoe upon thestair.
That even on such a night, with the voice of divine anger in the air,about his ears, he could not forego his sinister excursion, and foronce at these hours remain decorously in his rooms! Her wrath overcameher fear of him. She would _not_ have her house burnt and demolishedover her head, with thunderbolts, for _his_ doings.
She went forth, with her candle in her hand, and stood at the turn ofthe banister, confronting Mr. Dingwell, who, also furnished with acandle, was now about midway down the last flight of stairs.
"Egeria, in the thunder!" exclaimed the hard, scoffing tones of Mr.Dingwell; whom, notwithstanding her former encounter with him, shewould hardly have recognised in his ugly disguise.
"A hoffle night for anyone to go out, sir," she said, rather sternly,with a courtesy at the same time.
"Hoffle, is it?" said Mr. Dingwell, amused, with mock gravity.
"The hofflest, sir, I think I hever 'ave remembered."
"Why, ma'am, it isn't _raining_; I put my hand out of the window.There's none of that hoffle rain, ma'am, that gives a fellowrheumatism. I hope there's no unusual fog--is there?"
"_There_, sir;" exclaimed she, as another loud peal rattled overRosemary Court, with a blue glare through the lobby window and thefanlight in the hall. She paused, and lifted her hand to her eyes tillit subsided, and then murmured an ejaculation.
"I like thunder, my dear. It reminds me of your name, dear MissRumble;" and he prolonged the name with a rolling pronunciation."Shakespeare, you know, who says everything better than anyone else inthe world, makes that remarkable old gentleman, King Lear, say,'Thunder, _rumble_ thy bellyfull!' Of course, _I_ would not say _that_in a drawing-room, or to you; but kings are so refined they may saythings _we_ can't, and a genius like Shakespeare hits it off."
"I would not go out, sir, on such a night, without I was very sure itwas about something _good_ I was a-going," said Miss Rumble, verypale.
"You labour under electro-phobia, my dear ma'am, and mistake it forpiety. I'm not a bit afraid of that sort of artillery, ma'am. Here weare, two or three millions of people in this town; and two or threemillion of shots, and we'll see by the papers, I venture to say, notthree shots tell. Don't you think if Jupiter really meant mischief hecould manage something better?"
"I know, sir, it ought to teach us"--here she winced and paused; foranother glare, followed by another bellow of the thunder, "long,loud, and deep," interposed. "It should teach us some godly fear, ifwe has none by nature."
Mr. Dingwell looked at his watch.
"Oh! Mr. Dingwell, it is hoffle. I wish you would only see it, sir."
"_See_ the _thunder_--eh?"
"My poor mother. She always made us go down on our knees, and say ourprayers--she would--while the thunder was."
"You'd have had rather long prayers to-night. How your knees must haveached--egad! I don't wonder you dread it, Miss Sarah."
"And so I _do_, Mr. Dingwell, and so I should. Which I think all othersinners should dread it also."
"Meaning _me_."
"And take warning of the wrath to come."
Here was another awful clap.
"Hoffle it is, Mr. Dingwell, and a warnin' to _you_, sent special,mayhap."
"Hardly fair to disturb all the town for _me_, don't you think?"
"You're an old man, Mr. Dingwell."
"And you're an old woman, Miss Sarah," said he--not caring to bereminded of his years by other people, though he playfully calledhimself on occasions an old "boy"--"as old as Abraham's wife, whosenamesake you are, though you have not lighted on an Abraham yet, norbecome the mother of a great nation."
"Old enough to be good enough, as my poor mother used to say, sir; Iam truly; and sorry I am, Mr. Dingwell, to see you, on this hofflenight, bent on no good. I'm afraid, sir--oh, sir, sir, oughtn't youthink, with them sounds in your ears, Mr. Dingwell?"
"The most formidable thunder, my dear Sarah, proceeds from the silverytongue of woman. I can stand any other. _It_ frightens me. So, egad,if you please, I'll take refuge in the open air, and go out, andpatter a prayer."
And with a nod and a smirk, having had fooling enough, he glided byMiss Rumble, who made him an appalled courtesy, and, setting down hiscandle on the hall-table, he said, touching his false whiskers withhis finger tips, "Mind, not a word about these--upon my soul----you'd_better_ not."
She made another courtesy. He stopped and looked at her for an answer.
"Can't you _speak_?" he said.
"No, sir--sure--not a word," she faltered.
"Good girl!" he said, and opened the door, with his latch-key in hispocket, on pitchy darkness, which was instantaneously illuminated bythe lightning, and another awful roar of thunder broke over theirheads.
"The voice of heaven in warning!" she murmured to herself, as shestood by the banisters, dazzled by the gleam, and listening to thereverberation ringing in her ears. "I pray God he may turn back yet."
He looked over his shoulder.
"Another shot, Miss Rumble--missed again, you see." He nodded, steppedout upon the flags, and shut the door. She heard his steps in thesilence that followed, traversing the court.
"Oh dear! but I wish he _was_ gone, right out--a hoffle old man he is.There's a weight on my conscience like, and a fright in my heart,there is, ever since he camed into the 'ouse. He is so presumptious.To see that hold man made hup with them rings and whiskers, like arobber or a play-actor! And defyin' the blessed thunder of heaven--awalking hout, a mockin' and darin' it, at these hours--Oh _law_!"
The interjection was due to another flash and peal.
"I wouldn't wonder--no more I would--if that flash was the death o''im!"